


A Day in the Life of Sherrinford Holmes

by DisenchantedSA (peppersasen), peppersasen, Sherry (peppersasen)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asperger Syndrome, Autism, Cough Syrup, Family, Gen, Genderqueer, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, London Underground, Other, Past Drug Use, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:04:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2666330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppersasen/pseuds/DisenchantedSA, https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppersasen/pseuds/peppersasen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppersasen/pseuds/Sherry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherrinford Holmes has the British government and the northern hemisphere's greatest consulting detective for brothers. And that's hard to live up to... But that's okay! Because Sherry doesn't care about status. He just wants to be happy...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Good Morning, Sherry!

**Author's Note:**

> Expect this to be bland. Expect this to be boring. I took an acting workshop last week and I learned that I’m afraid of conflict, and I tend to avoid it in everyday life. The teacher said stories work because there’s conflict, it wouldn’t be a story without—even in a monologue there has to be some sort of conflict. And it made me think of this, my second Sherrinford fanfic, because it’s a slice-of-life thing that lacks conflict. So, I guess this is an experiment. I apologise if you end up feeling like I wasted minutes of your life reading it.
> 
> This story takes place after “Cut!” It would probably be a good idea to read that first, so what you read here makes sense. But if you don’t want to read it, here is a summary with spoilers and all: Sherlock and John meet Sherlock and Mycroft’s estranged brother Sherrinford on a train on their way back to London after paying Victor Trevor a visit. Sherry has nowhere to go in London and ends up staying the night at 221B. He just wants to sleep after a long day, but Sherlock’s not making it easy for him by playing his wretched violin. Sherry cuts his violin strings.
> 
> And, ja, the author is a coward who only has the guts to write fanfic about little-known characters so she doesn’t have to stress herself out with being canon-compliant. Sorry about that.

**06:06 – John Watson's Old Room, 221B Baker Street, London**

"Nghm..." Sherry squirmed, stirring a little under his sheet in an attempt to hide from the cold.

Sherlock was in his room pulling the curtains open, forcing Sherry—still facing the window after a still night of deep sleep—to deal with the sunlight. Ever since Sherry threw the alarm clock (a real vintage alarm clock) in John Watson’s old room against the wall, smashing it beyond repair, Sherlock has walked into john’s room every morning to torment Sherry with sunlight. Which Sherlock knew he hated, if a little less than the nagging sounds of an alarm clock.

Sherry should have known: normally he couldn't stand the sound of most text notifications, how could he reasonably be expected to tolerate an alarm clock? A real alarm clock. Now the alarm clock is in a wooden box with a sliding lid that he calls a "spring coffin". It makes him feel guilty. The alarm clock is dead, but his very alive brother is waking him up in the most annoying way possible. It felt like the way your eye muscles contracted while pupils shrink after being in the dark, but worst because it was combined with the sensation of being startled awake. The sunlight was hurting his eyes. He could feel the back of his eyeballs strain and slightly ache; it felt like he could feel his eye sockets.

"Too much," Sherry thought. "There is far too much sun in London."

‘Interesting.’ Sherlock noted: This time Sherry didn’t withdraw from the sunlight. In the first few days in London he seemed to have instinctively pulled his limbs away from the sunlight, sometimes he’d move seats altogether to avoid the sunlight—such as when Mrs. Hudson opened a curtain a little wider during breakfast—then, a second later, he’d looked slightly dazed and confused, as if he no longer understood or remembered why he pulled away in the first place. No longer reasoning behind the impulse.

His heart felt nothing, but a good type of nothing. The first thought that occurs when one is stressed, depressed, or has unsolved problems, that first thought that occurs to them when they've just woken up isn’t there. But this morning Sherry's first-thought-of-the-morning was blissfully Mrs. Hudson's biscuits from last night which he was looking forward to.

"Is there nothing to worry about anymore?" he thought with disbelief, his eyes opening slightly, searching in a blur. "No, this can’t be. This is too good to be true. Life is never this easy. Something bad will happen. Something always happens."

He stirred some more between the sheets and the old duvet he used as a blanked until it sunk in that he now worked a conventional job with conventional hours that required going to an office every workday, a concept and way of life that seemed alien to him.

Sherlock walked out of John's old room, down to the sitting room. He knew Sherry didn't need any further startling and waking. As soon as it hit him that it was a weekday, he would jump out and work as soon as he entered his 'autopilot' mode. Sherlock noted that he seemed unaccustomed to working within a set system; his routine must have been looser before London. Doesn't abide to his new schedule begrudgingly, actually seems to appreciate the new structure. Sherlock couldn’t figure out what his brother did for a living. Not yet.


	2. It's Always Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the author is a very petty human being and he has just always wanted to write a 221-word piece. This chapter is 221 words long. LOL. The story isn’t supposed to be long, I just wanted to write in chapters because I wanted to do the genderqueer thing and chapters are better for navigating genderqueer characters. Might not update, depending on what certain people tell Variety. *Mentally squints but doesn’t really*

**06:08 – John Watson’s Old Room, 221B Baker Street, London**

Half awake, Sherry ran her fingers through her hair feeling an urge to wear hair in a single side braid or a ponytail today, she panicked when she realised her hair obviously wasn’t long enough to wear even in short a ponytail. Sherlock must have been telling the truth: James Moriarty isn’t her friend. He must have chopped her hair very recently—possibly when she was unconscious before he dropped her off at the train station the day she met Sherlock and John—because she still subconsciously runs fingers through her hair like it should be longer and when her fingers reach the end and there’s no more hair to run her fingers through, she feels void like something’s missing, and a little disappointed.

It’s always something. Something always goes wrong. Nothing is ever easy with her.

Her teddy bear was lying face down next to her. He’s fine. Swiss Army knife still in her pocket and stayed in her pocket—against everyone’s advice, but Sherry would rather die a ridiculous death than sleep feeling unsafe. Propping herself on an elbow, she grabbed her glasses on nightstand and put them on. Agenda still there. Check. SIM-cardless phone. Check.  
Sherry sat up and found a mirror, it was shoulder-length. Itchy on her shoulder.


	3. The Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Sherlock Holmes. This is Chapter 3.

It was the game.

It was because of the game.

Sunshine is still warm, but the air is cold, and the wind bites a bit... It feels familiar. The climate, it isn’t strange to me... I just don’t really recognise it. It’s probably not my first time in the northern hemisphere, or Europe. And when I crawled out of bed, they’re still there. Lestrade’s people, those police people, were outside of the 221 Baker Street. Guarding me? Guarding the world from me? Who knows. They watch.

Why and what it is exactly that they’re looking out for, I have no idea. I can’t read their faces. I don’t think I need guarding. Do I? Besides, I already have Mycroft and Anthea. I go text them when I need anything. I don't need them following me around. And I told Mycroft to make Lestrade make them go away but Mycroft says it’s for my own good. Now I think I don't like Mycroft anymore. This is patronising.

I’ll give Mycroft credit for my job, though. My brother Mycroft is apparently a very resourceful man. I'm still not quite sure what he does. All I did really was watch reruns of a BBC documentary series about the London Underground. Three times in 24 hours, the entire week it was on. Mycroft asked me if I wanted to work for the London Underground. I nodded. I think more because he thought it was pathetic that I was obsessively watching reruns about trains. Maybe embarrassed for having an unemployed sibling? And next thing you know, some strings were pulled and Mycroft’s “goldfish” puppets seemed more than happy to comply—or forced, I still haven’t figured Mycroft out. And voilà, I have a job at the Tube’s Lost Property Department. All in convenient walking distance.

I feel guilty taking the offer—Mycroft hadn’t felt like a ‘real’ brother to me yet, not real enough to feel entitled to take something from. But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to contribute to the rent, and that make me feel even guiltier. Because Mrs. Hudson is such a sweet old lady. What was I to do? I didn’t even know where I came from. If I were to leave London, I wouldn’t even know where to go ‘home’. Now I owe Mycroft for arranging a job and I hate owing people things, it makes me trust them less. The real Lost Property Office is even more fascinating than portrayed in the documentary. Impressive. But I still don’t like owing Mycroft. And I certainly don’t being watched by everyone.

Everyone is patronising. I’m even starting to dislike Dr. Watson. He said I needed to get some sun, mentioned something about signs of vitamin D deficiency. One can get that in a pill, I thought. And, as if he could read my mind, he popped in for breakfast the following day with a bottle vitamin D tablets. He made me take the supplements and so I took a handful and chewed them right in front of him. Like candy. Interestingly, he wasn’t at all shocked—not the slightest flinch, which is very telling: Sherlock’s antics must have been worse. But among the people I dislike, I still like Dr. Watson the most—he’s still code yellow. Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Watson are code green. Maybe next week, I’ll shift Mrs. Hudson to code blue. Mycroft is code orange. I’m still not sure where to put Anthea, lime green? Somewhere between yellow and green. We’ll see if she’s trustworthy. Or if she’s orange too.

But I hate Sherlock the most. He’s the mean reds. He used to be purple, but love-hate is complicated and making him code red is easier to process. He’s a bloody pretentious idiot who thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. He’s not. And honestly, where would he be now if it weren’t for Mycroft’s connections? Probably sitting in bloody prison, wasting his life silly like a proper lowlife. Sometimes I think he deserves to. Someone needs to bring his diva arse down a peg. How many strings had Mycroft pulled for him? How many of those strings got tangled? How many of them were pulled too hard and snapped? But Sherlock doesn’t seem to care. He’s a spoiled brat. Maybe he even likes it, because he’s a bloody drama queen. He just keeps taking and basking. How many people who’ve had a drug habit even get a second chance like that? Epic git. An ungrateful one too. I’ve only been here for a little over a week and Mycroft’s already wiggled him out of trouble _thrice_. Brother Dear’s so reckless and thinks he can get away with anything.

And whatever it is that Mycroft does, I’m sure a lot of people want him dead. I float between worrying for his safety and wondering if he’s ever had anyone murdered before. I’m sure never with his bare hands, but those strings... Maybe he's strangled someone from a distance? Without ever getting his own hands dirty? And when Mycroft’s gone, who’ll take care of us? We’d be lost without him. And yet Sherlock takes him for granted and mocks him about his weight! It’s not even Mycroft’s fault that he’s overweight, anyone with an IQ over 110 could’ve figured his medical concerns. But Sherlock is just mean. Unnecessarily so. Sherlock may not be unattractive himself, but his lack of inner-handsome makes him look butt ugly.

All I had to do was mention the game.

That’s there the guards are.

The police were outside 221, Lost Property, one even placed inside the office.

I don’t like being put under surveillance.

I like New Scotland Yard. Fascinating characters. Small interesting details of their personal lives reveal hints police work taking its toll, only a few, if any, of the employees had it all together—even in-house admin who never got to do fieldwork. Sally Donovan wins an award for being the “Most Miserable Copper” there. Another policewoman at Vice, or whatever the politically-correct term for that department now is, is a necrophiliac. God, don’t they do psych evaluations and background checks around here? I wonder if Sherlock noticed any of this.

Just last night I was there. Sherlock took me. Partly because I didn't feel like staying home and watching “Spooks” again after a scene where a lady hid something in her teeth made me squirm, it brought back bad memories about teeth, another part of me wanted to go on a cab ride and look out the window but I was too scared to take a cab alone, but mostly because I was... Bored. Sherlock was on a case. So I tagged along.

I pulled a chair and sat behind Sherlock while he flipped through photos of a crime scene. First I mucked about with a wheeled office chair, twirling a few times, and pushing myself around with my feet. After I was bored with that, I grabbed the edge of the table right next to Sherlock and pulled himself on the chair and looked through some photos with him. Sometimes Sherlock would unfortunately miss important details and I would have to tug on his coat or shirt sleeve to bring something to his attention. Because good Lord, Sherlock could be so slow sometimes.

The details were always horrific. And they revealed the rottenest sides of human nature. Cases unfold and there’s always a selfish agenda, something done for personal gain, and rarely for the greater good. More often than not, at least. The crimes of passion were irrational, if not downright stupid. I’ve yet to see a clue that leads to some sort of secret act of kindness. Always flaunting acts of charity, convincing themselves that they’re good people. How strange that the only persons they’ve managed to fool is themselves. Gruesome stuff. But those photos didn’t bother me as much because sometimes when I try to close my eyes before bed at night, I have a slideshow of even more horrific images of violence run through on my closed eyelids. Eyes wide shut. It’s not fair how I close my eyes and still see those images anyway, and sometimes people have their eyes open but don’t see anything. I don’t remember where I got those violent images from, or how. Did I just see them second-hand? Did witness them in person? Did I experience them?

This. This is precisely why I’m not interested in following in Sherlock’s footsteps: Because as soon as things—everything—comes into focus, you begin to see the ugliness of it all. Every single time. I’m quite content with my Tube job, I’m satisfied enough going through people’s belongings and getting a glimpse of who they were, are, will be... But at a comfortable distance. I always hope they will be reunited with their belongings if I see they have sentimental value, and sometimes I’d watch them collect their things from a distance, and I’m glad to have helped, but I’ve never been interested in meeting them, getting to know them any further, and especially not _talking_ to them. Especially not the extroverts. Because if I can smell stupid from a mile away, I can smell stupid from a person’s lost bag. Meanwhile...

For days now the police had been trying to talk to me about sharing anything I can remember about James, my previous life, anything. “Anything, anything you can remember,” they keep nagging. We’d sit in a meeting room and we’d IM on our phones.

The first time we had such meeting, someone from IT had to be called up into the meeting room to assist Lestrade with setting up an IM app on his phone—he didn’t have one, if you can believe it. I may have lost my memory, but at least I still instinctively knew how to use the Internet and most gadgets—even the ones set in foreign languages that tourists lost on the Tube. Now in addition to cataloguing lost property and maintaining the inventory, it’s also my responsibility to turn all mobile phones off or to silent mode when nobody else can. The Lost Property Office has been much quieter since.

Sally muttered something about Lestrade being “unable even digest the absurdity of it all.” But Sally is the absurd one. Lestrade couldn't understand it. But they all played along: Lestrade, Sally, Anderson, Sherlock, Dr. Watson, and the IT guy. They all hung their heads, eyes glued into their phone screens in the meeting room. Because I like to communicate that way. Their fault for asking. I personally don’t want to talk about it.

“It’s okay to just say ‘Scotland Yard’, there’s no need to type in the whole thing,” Lestrade IM-ed once, I wonder if I am a foreigner sometimes. I still can’t tell, but I seem somewhat familiar with British English.

“No.” I replied. I didn’t like it at all. Everything’s in a name. It’s not the same anymore. And so I went on and kept referring to the office as “New Scotland Yard”, shortened “NSY”. But never just SY. And never “the Met”. Ever. Anderson didn’t understand what the big deal was. But then again Anderson is stupider than Sherlock.

My body feels much less wobbly, the tremors on the first day are gone. And I was beginning to recall my old self and my old life, and even vaguely remember developing a game app called “Crown Jewels”. For some reason, it filled me with pride. This must have been the way I felt when I saw how happy that game app made its players feel and the all people affected by it: The excitement, the people I saved from boredom...

The vague memory of my previous profession was the third thing I remembered after the fact that I liked nice soft things in my earlobes (earplugs, premium earphones) and that I prefer to be called Sherry. But I didn't think it was worth mentioning. I intuitively still know how to code—apparently I know how to set up a website from Notepad. I also began developing a new app called “Endgame” two days ago, but then I got bored and ditched it. Clearly I was a freelance contractor because otherwise my employers would be looking for me, or making attempts to contact me. But nobody’s filed me as missing. I remembered a male client who commissioned a something from me, and that’s it. I remember the client also ordered two other apps, but my memory’s hazy about that. I didn’t even think it was worth mentioning.

When I did mention it offhandedly, however...

I told them it was a heist game set in London.

They asked me what it was called, and I typed in: C-r-o-w-n. Space. J-e-w-e-l-s. Enter.

Lestrade’s face froze for a second, seemed like he was taking time to allow the words to register, head shot up, and muttered a “blimey”—I’m not even sure what that word means—and then everyone went bananas and started scrambling. I overheard the Sally refer to me as a... I forget. I was overwhelmed and I can’t remember the word she used. But it didn’t sound nice.

It was just a minor detail.

Now I have all his goons tailgate me wherever I go! Watching my every move. I’m scared and slightly confused. How do I conduct myself? How do I behave without giving away information that could harm me? What harms me? What should I hide?

And not only did Mycroft refuse to make them go away, he went along with it. Agreed to it. Even offered to provide resources to dig into my app-developing past.

Seeing them there—and worse, responding to me with a glare when they saw me looking down at them from the bedroom window, I was so angry. I know he had technically only been my brother for a week, but I felt betrayed. I thought Mycroft was on my side. _How cruel_... He didn’t even care how violated, intruded, and uncomfortable this... ‘entourage’ made me feel. But then again, Mycroft and Sherlock seem to be averse to feelings to the extreme. I wonder if being brought up by Mummy and Daddy and anything to do with that. I wasn't brought up by them. I still don’t know why I was separated by them. Nor will anyone tell me the truth.

My teeth tell me I was mildly abandoned by my caretakers as a child—the mistake of my teeth wasn’t fixed until it was too late. Holes. There are fillings, not the white kind, either. Awful dark metal. Scary. Probably done as an experiment by a dentistry student at a university medical centre. I was probably not raised by people with nannies, a nanny would never have let this happen... Or maybe the holes happened during a period where my caretakers were overwhelmed by not having household staff? Maybe it was as simple as being unwanted by them too. I think it’s unlikely that I was indulged and allowed to have a little too much sweets. Or maybe my caretakers were young, inexperienced, and I was the first child they’ve ever had in their care. I wish I had my teeth fixed before the memory loss occurred. Now it’s just a painful reminder, though I don’t know what’s to be remember. Not to mention a source of embarrassment, letting everyone know how unwanted you are. It makes them unwant you too, in effect. Because people are sheep. And they can’t think for themselves. Even I can’t seem to forget how unwanted I think I am when I see my teeth. What’s up with that?

Whatever that was about, I’m just waiting for Sherlock to mock them too. As soon as he’s bored and done teasing Mycroft about his weight. Hearing him call Mycroft that makes me want to starve myself to death out of empathy, and maybe a little fear for myself. I’m priming myself for the day Sherlock eventually makes finally lowers himself to that level and makes fun of my teeth. Because he will. He was incredibly mean to the Homeless Network. He’s not above anything, I can tell.

It is, however, hard to tell how Sherlock came about being such a prick. Mummy and Daddy seem like decent enough people. Surely, they’re can’t be to blame for his arseholery?

Now I have these policemen and women take turns following me everywhere I go.

Now I seriously regret ever mentioning the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm not feeling well. And sorry that was a sucky excuse for writing a badly-written chapter. I suck.


End file.
